The thin Blue line

On one side is Hardigree Terrace, a public housing project. On the other is a neighborhood cops say is a hotbed for crime.

But when the Winder Police Department recently opened a precinct on the edge of Hardigree Terrace, Horton Street became a dividing line for opinions, too.

The people who live in public housing seem overwhelmingly to support the police, while the people who live across the street feel that officers are spying on them.

Addie Jennings is one of the ones who supports the new police precinct. She used to call police regularly to report problems, but since the new precinct opened, she doesn't have to call as often.

"It helps a lot and cuts down on a lot of the boys standing in the street," said Jennings, who has lived in Hardigree Terrace since 1988. "It's not much of a problem anymore. I'm proud of it, too.

"We have worked hard; we deserve somewhere to rest," Jennings said. Of the problem-causing people, she said: "They come in here and want to take over. It's not fair."

But an 18-year-old woman who identified herself only as Lil' Pony said the new precinct is nothing more than a means for officers to harass people who congregate in the front yards.

"We can't even stand out here because they harass us," the woman said as she smoked a cigarette on the front porch of a house on the corner of Duke and Horton streets. "They need to stop harassing us. We're only teenagers."

She's not alone in the way she feels.

No one wants his name connected to negative comments about the police department, though plenty offered choice words - many that could not be printed - about their new neighbors.

For about four years, Winder police have assigned officers at a small station in Glenwood, another of the city's public housing complexes. But officers only patrolled Hardigree Terrace until November, when the department based Sgt. Henry Schotter at a new precinct office there.

Schotter doesn't keep set hours; he doesn't want locals to know when he'll be there.

If Schotter kept set hours, trouble-makers would just tailor their activity around his schedule, police say.

Schotter regularly patrols the area, and from a window inside the station - essentially an apartment that the city's housing authority remodeled into a police office - the sergeant can look down Duke Street and watch the activity, or just the people who gather across the street.

While some may not like the police presence, Schotter says Hardigree Terrace residents should feel at home and shouldn't have to deal with constant crime.

"You should feel like this is your community," Schotter said of residents. "You should feel safe and secure."

Winder police's approach isn't new, and other officers who've been there say the new Winder office will get the suspicious glare of some neighbors for a while.

Athens-Clarke police Capt. Clarence Holeman ran the county's eastside precinct for about six years, working out of an apartment in Athens' Nellie B public housing complex.

"The hardest part about it was trying to build the trust of the people in the area," Holeman said. "I wanted it to be more of a partnership than a dictatorship.

"It took me about two years to get that to where I wanted it," he added.

Over time, a lot of the criminals left, Holeman said.

Allen Finley, who relocated to Winder from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, sees no problem with officers' presence.

"A lot of folks don't like (police officers) for whatever reason," Finley said. "It's a job; it's a necessity. Without them, just think of where we would be.